kurtzmic:

lol.....does that thumbs-down = i am wumo? anyway, who cares?

thedude:

Yup if ya can't defend China attack the US....good plan.

mattsm84:

I wish I could up vote the comments to other people's answers. 

Hugh.G.Rection:

What's the matter? Don't like what you see in the mirror? Or do you support indoctrinating children?

I condemn all indoctrination of children regardless of who does it, be it Britain, USA, religious schools, parents or China.

mattsm84:

Actually, as of 1943, reciting the pledge of allegiance isn't mandatory. Google The West Virginia Board of Education V. Barnette. I'll quote the relevant part of the ruling: 

To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

lokethebloke:

All well and good Matts, so why does it still go on?

Hugh.G.Rection:

For indoctrination to be such it does not need to happen everywhere, only somewhere!

mattsm84:

It doesn't. At least, to the extent that it does can't be considered indoctrination as it is neither forcible, as students are free to opt out of it, nor coercive, as no penalty is attached to doing so. It isn't even uniform in that some schools do say the pledge before beginning the day while others do not.  In the interest of using the example you sited as mirror, the same cannot be said of the flag raising ceremonies, which is the closest cross cultural analog, that occur in Chinese primary and secondary schools. And while its common enough when beginning the school day or before specific youth sporting events, such as baseball games, its left up to the adult or adults in charge. The difference here is that in the US, this particular example is more a function of cultural socialization while in china its the result of a government mandate. I suppose you could say that those to things are essentially the same, but that would be like saying that a cat and fish are the same animal as both are sometimes kept as pets.      

lokethebloke:

I'm very impressed with the quote you just gave us especially this part :-   

"The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us".

Does that mean that Mr Ausange.will get off scott free when his rendition to the United States of America finally happens?

Hugh.G.Rection:

Indoctrination does not need the force of law to be indoctrination, it is much more effective if you make is the 'socially acceptable norm' so that everyone subjects themselves to it because they don't want to be 'different'.

This is 1000% more effective in impressionable young adults, esp those going through puberty. It happens in the USA and it happens in almost every nation on earth especially amongst those who consider themselves religious.

There is no such thing as a (insert religion) child. Only a child of (insert religion) parents. - Professor Richard Dawkins.

I would go farther to say such cases are indications of potential indoctrination. Humans are only free so long as they are given the chance to have a free mind and to make their own decisions based on evidence, and a healthy skeptical attitude. Indoctrination of whatever form be it, social enforcement of allegiance to a flag, emperor worship, god worship, or belief in the infallibility of a party (or a pope) is a criminal (in my opinion) abdication of parental responsibility.

mattsm84:

Indoctrination does need to have a coercive element to it, otherwise it's by definition socialization. Since the pledge of allegiance in the US cannot be said to be forcible it cannot logically be coincided to be indoctrination. Whether or not their is an ideological component, or how I might feel about this element, is frankly besides the point. 

As for the Wiki leaks guy. If or when he is sent to the US he'll be given a fair trial,  as he is entitled to even as a non-citizen, where he can argue that the dissemination state secrets is actually under the umbrella of the 1st amendment. I can't imagine the court making favorable ruling based on that argument.    

TedDBayer:

I was always pissed that we had to pledge to the Queen. I find the idea of royality to be offensive. Those people live in undeserved wealth and have no real role today.

lokethebloke:

Matt,  

Would you consider 'peer pressure' as being coercive and having some influence in the brainwashing/indoctrination business?  

I believe that It could have something, but not everything, I hasten to add, to do with a possible reason why there are so many college/school shootings in the United States of America.   There are bound to be a small minority in any organisation who feel that they don't want to be indoctrinated for whatever reason.   These people will inevitably come under enormous peer pressure to conform to what is universally considered to be the norm, if they don't conform they will be isolated, scape-goated, bullied and sometimes driven to extreme violence, either to themselves or to others.   I'm sure that the same happens in China, with one small difference, because of the lack of easy access to guns, the violence is directed mostly at themselves.

I'm not a great fan of any type ritualised patriotism but i do recognise it's uses in controlling a population, if that's what the lords and masters (pick a country, religion, sect. team, discussion site) want to do.   It could be argued that whoever they are, they're doing a pretty good job of keeping the lid on things, mainly for their own benefit of course.

As for the australian, swedish, british, equadorian gentleman.   Did he commit his so called crime in the United States of America?

mattsm84:

I do not believe that children are ostracized by adults or their peers for refusing to repeat the pledge in class. So no, this cannot be considered indoctrination even on those fairly week grounds. As far as peer pressure goes western countries in general, and the US in particular, are much more apt to weight the rights and concerns of the individual more heavily against the concerns of the collective or group than the honor-shame societies of  East Asia. The American attitude towards gun ownership is actually a fairly good example of this, and I'm glad you brought it up. Few Americans contest that banning or restricting gun ownership would result in less gun violence, which would be of a benefit to American as a whole, however, most Americans believe that the freedom of the individual to own guns in the abstract out weighs the group benefit of reduced gun violence. Responsibility, likewise, is assigned to the individual who committed the crimes in question. The person who shot other people is then to be punished rather than pitied as a victim of the group. As a point of contrast, using the weight of the collective to illicit desired behavior is encouraged in Chinese culture. Confucius writes the following “Lead the people with administrative injunctions and put them in their place with penal law, and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence and put them in their place through roles and ritual practices, and in addition to developing a sense of shame, they will order themselves harmoniously”

As for the WikiLeaks guy. The alleged crime was of theft was of information that belonged to the US government. What he stands accused of is encouraging that theft. Where he may have been when he did that is irrelevant. Again, he's free to argue otherwise at his trial, but if the US court system decides to convict it'll be hard for me to blame them.